by Josh Kimball

*Hip-hop: Is Snoop Dogg a member of the Nation of Islam? There goes his Senate run. Also, what does DMX think about this political misstep?

*Art: See what it’s like to be standing, surfing inside a wave. Not only do I not know how to surf, I can’t even swim. Or read. [neatorama]

*Royalty: Prince is selling his next three albums as a bundle exclusively through Target. Apropos of Target, I’ve bought the wrong sized furnace filter twice in a row now. Can’t we just decide on a standard?

*Covers: Neko Case covers Neil Young’s “Dreamin’ Man.” A strange proportion of listenerd readership (which now numbers in the dozens) has a crush on either or both of these parties. And by that, I mean a SEXUAL crush.

*Camo: Urban camouflage: How to disguise your appearance in city settings. (This smells old to me, but I’ll link to anything having to do with Post-Its.) [swissmiss]

*Online music: LaLa’s performance encourages music labels. CEO Bill Nguyen spoke on a Music 2.0 panel at CES this year and he seemed like he had his shit together. I, on the other hand, loathed being there. [via gonze]

*Beats: How to tell which drummers brought a metronome into the studio. Like CSI, but for drummers. Who haven’t murdered people. [bb gadgets]

*Related: Now here’s a man (Brian Eno) who knows how to Twitter. [tds]

*Religion: Consider reading this mini-piece for the day job, which is about the Mall of America adding a space for Muslims to pray.

*Scrabble: From a recent letter to the New Yorker: “As the word list has grown, certain letters have become overvalued and others undervalued. “X,” an eight-point letter, is now far more easily played than “C,” a three-point letter. When “za” and “qi” were added to the official word list a few years ago, no adjustment was made to the ten-point values of the “Z” and “Q” tiles. The result is that the current game encourages players to exploit the inefficiencies of an outdated scoring system.”

Exactly! WHERE ARE YOUR PRECIOUS ALGORITHMS NOW?!!?!? (I don’t know what that last part means, but I’ve been wanting to yell it for a long time now.)

*Booze: For the 3rd year in a row, Minneapolis bar The Local sold more Jameson than any other bar in the world.

Yes I have a semi-crush on NY and NC. After listening to Pontiak’s lame cover of “Rowland The Headless Thompson Gunner” today, I am going to suggest to NY via email that he do justice to the song – a full treatment of Old Black, distortion, feedback and Crazy Horse.

No I did not. I live in suburban Frisco and avoid everything with the words New York in it. :) Besides I’m kinda illiterate and avoid most media given the state of the economy and various wars. All the anti-depressants on the planet can’t get us out of this economic depression.